Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Annapurna, a name that strikes terror into the heart of the most seasoned climbers under the high UV-intensive mountain sun.

Climbers attempted to scale Annapurna mountain range for fifty years before finally reaching its peak in 1950. It may only be the tenth highest of its kind in the world but it is still more than 8000m high and every seasoned professional trying to conquer the mountain has a 41 percent chance of never making it down to safety again.

Death Trap Peak

183 people have gone up but only 130 have survived to tell the tale. 53 people have died trying. This makes the mountain the most dangerous to climb in all the world. Other mountains have established base camps and tourism, like Mount Everest, where you can buy a complete training, oxygen for only a few hundred dollars a bottle and guides that push you up the mountain side. Annapurna is much more dangerous than that.

This is also reflected in the number of ascents of a meager 130 compared to more than 5000 ascents of Mount Everest who claims 4.3 fatalities for every 100 successful summits.

Most professional climbers hint that the south face of the moutain is the most dangerous route of all the 8000 mountains. The route contains big ice cliffs and seracs which are hard to climb and treacherous to evaluate.

Seracs of Annapurna

The seracs are huge columns of ice that form at glacier crevasses leaning in every direction. They are brittle and deadly as they may topple at any time even in the most stabilizing cold weather conditions. In order to get to the peak climbers must traverse this wasteland facing the danger of falls, collapses and entrapment.